


Hubris

by Charona



Category: Formula 1 RPF, Motorsport RPF
Genre: Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Car Accidents, Drunken Confessions, Drunkenness, Fights, Fluff, Kevin finds a drunk Nico, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Nico is an idiot, Self-Indulgent, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-24
Updated: 2019-09-24
Packaged: 2020-10-27 10:04:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20758586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charona/pseuds/Charona
Summary: “Hubris (/ˈhjuːbrɪs/, from ancient Greek ὕβρις) describes a personality quality of extreme or foolish pride or dangerous overconfidence, often in combination with (or synonymous with) arrogance.”Or – Nico wishes he would have been a better student and paid more attention to what his Latin teacher had to say.(Inspired by "Car radio" by Twenty One Pilots.)





	Hubris

**Author's Note:**

  * For [londonbird](https://archiveofourown.org/users/londonbird/gifts), [RosaNautica](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RosaNautica/gifts).

> I’m back at it again and this time we’re facing Nico’s completely unnecessary stupidity and Kevin’s way of dealing with it.  
This one is hard to tag, because I don’t want to spoil too much. 
> 
> This work finally has some kind of soundtrack: Twenty One Pilots’ “Car radio”, which is one of my favourite songs ever. Go, check it out.
> 
> Last but not least a huge thanks to **londonbird** and **RosaNautica** for the amazing support throughout this rollercoaster of a story!

**Denial – It is faith and there's sleep // we need to pick one, please.**

“Denial is a funny concept, isn’t it? It doesn’t make any sense, though, because you can’t suppress something without thinking about it. You imagine it automatically, even when you’re just trying to push it away. It’s as if I would tell you to not think of a pink elephant. What comes into your mind, inevitably and without you having any control over it? Right, a pink elephant.” He clicks his tongue and stares into the ascending bubbles in his almost empty glass of beer. ”So while you’re trying to forget something you’re actually diving even deeper into the subject. The only way to steer clear of the actual problem is to overstimulate your mind with other things. Sports, working or, my personal favourite, sex.” His phone chimes in his jeans pocket and he grins wolfishly, without answering the call. “But no matter how fast you run, your brain is always faster than you, it is ten steps ahead of you. You pick up a contract and you _know_ it doesn’t lead anywhere, but you still do it, because you still hope for it to work out. You hope, because we’re humans and stupid. And with hope comes fear, right? They come hand in hand just like the imaginary elephant.” He presses his trembling fingers against the cool glass and chuckles humourlessly. The phone has stopped ringing. “It’s interesting what fear does to a human brain. You can switch it off, you know? Soldiers all over the world face their fear during training. Scared of the ocean? Throw them off a boat in the middle of the sea and track them down a few days later. Scared of heights? Make them spend a day trapped in the highest branches of a tree or push them out of an airplane.” He taps his own forehead and grins smugly. “But your mind is a bright boy, remember? It protects you and makes you think about anything else but your fear. You get all calm and collected in order to not lose your head. And you praise yourself for being cool-headed and smart. But you’re not. You’re the sad clown behind the empty circus tent. I’m afraid of clowns and isn’t just ironic in itself.”  
He takes a sip from his glass, snorts and cold beer drips from his chin. It makes him laugh even harder.  
“Jesus, I’m so fucked.”  
He throws a side glance at the man next to him, an old Singaporean with so many wrinkles his face it looks like a rumpled blanket.  
“You don’t understand a word I’m saying, do you?”  
It makes him chuckle and empty his glass in one go. He nods at the barkeeper to order another round for himself and his silent companion. 

“I think you’ve had enough, my friend.” The barkeeper says with the decisive tone of a man who makes a living by telling people off. “It’s time to go home. I’ll call you a taxi.”

He staggers to his feet with shaking legs and rummages through the wide pockets of his loose jeans.  
His keys fall to the floor with a light jingling sound and picking them up is more effort than he had expected.  
He waves away the barkeeper’s offer just like he dismissed all the others during the last month and staggers to the oily door of the bar.

A moment later Nico Hülkenberg tumbles down the stairs of the shaggy bar and towards his rental car. The night is clear and hot, dark and silent.  
Everything is so goddamn silent lately. From his incoming offers to the one person he so desperately wants to talk to. He’s in a booming metropolis and has never felt more alone in his life.  
Nico knows, he shouldn’t drive. He shouldn’t get into the car and fumble with the keys for minutes because he’s too damn drunk to find the ignition.  
He should have called a taxi in the bar.  
But at the same time he shouldn’t have gambled with his future and trusted Haas and their deceitful bunch of lawyers.  
They didn’t even call. He got the news by scrolling through Instagram and dropped his phone to the floor.  
But now the realization seeps through his pores like poison, slithers through his veins and turns his blood into ice. Goosebumps cover his neck and he shudders despite the muggy heat of the Singaporean night.  
He rakes his fingers through his hair before finally starting the car and making his way home. Where ever that is tonight. 

His tapping fingers on the steering wheel compose a frantic beat and he wishes the car radio would work. But it doesn’t and so Nico sits in the dark and is slain by silence that is his own now and at the same time fully out of his hands – solemn and deafening and murderous. 

_”We’re delighted to confirm Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen for the 2020 season.”_  
He stops tapping and grips the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles turn white. 

_”That leaves Nico Hülkenberg in a very displeasing situation, with only Alfa Romeo and Williams left to still assign seats for the upcoming season in Formula One."_

His grip tightens even more, the dull buzzing of the engine too silent to drown out his mind. His vision blurs with unshed tears now stinging in his eyes like a sharp razor. His breathing hitches. 

_”What is the German going to do? Other series and lower Formula classes have already more or less confirmed their driver’s line up for next year and “The Hulk” himself ruled out Endurance Racing.”_

He bites the inside of his lips until his teeth dig through the skin and the taste of blood blends with the stale taste of beer. 

_”You should have taken the offer. Was it the money? Didn’t they offer you enough? Didn’t **I** offer you enough?!”_

The last voice bellows through his head, sharp Nordic accent reverberating through his skull. Eyes that looked at him so tenderly more often than Nico can count, stare at him now with worried annoyance, incomprehension and worst of all fear. And Nico catches that fear in that second, sees his own arrogance oddly reflected in Kevin’s caring grey eyes – a portent of his mistake, his failure, his downfall. 

But he’s just fantasising that. Because Kevin never looked at him tenderly, never bothered to care, never had any reason to do so.  
It’s just the last straw, Nico’s intoxicated mind offers him in order to hide, deflect, steer clear.  
Until it snaps.

Until the silence gets too heavy and Nico can’t take it anymore.

His whole body churns and falters in one panicked and utterly painful cramp. He crouches down on the driver’s seat to hide from the pain.  
But he is drunk and he forgets his foot is still on the throttle, his hands slip from the wheel. Everything vanishes but the breath-taking fear ripping him apart.  
The frantic scream of agony detangles itself from the depth of his quivering, black soul without hindrance. 

The impact, when the car hits the wooden guardrail is severe enough to make his chest jolt forward and his head hit the steering wheel. Metal crunches with an ear-piercing shriek.  
The scream ends in a soft whimper, when Nico blinks and releases the last remnants of air in his lungs with an all-consuming, painful but voiceless sob.  
The ticking of the battery and the almost confused crunching of battered metal are the only sounds left together with the sharp pain in his forehead and the shrill ringing in his ears. 

Nico forcefully tries to hold his body together, which feels like breaking apart with his next intake of breath. He stuffs the pain back into his skull by clutching his head with shaky hands and pressing his knuckles against his temples. Slouched down on the driver’s seat, head resting against the wheel, he tries to be as silent as possible so the realisation wouldn’t see him, as it slips past the wrecked car to collect his soul. 

But the pain finds him nevertheless. He doesn’t cry. He doesn’t know how. 

His phone chimes somewhere in the foot well of the car again and he can’t find the strength to lift a  
hand to pick it up. He feels the vibration through the slightly rattling dashboard. 

The paralysis slowly wanes, adrenaline makes his fingers twitch.  
“Oh, Fuck.” He mumbles against the cool leather of the steering wheel. 

Seconds, minutes, hours pass and Nico slips in and out of consciousness. It’s like falling asleep, only that his vision is blurred even when he wakes up and looks at the broken radio again and again – and… 

“Jesus, Nico, are you alright?”  
Suddenly there is a hand on his bicep, clean, blunt fingernails and pale skin. Nico looks down and frowns.  
“Hey, Nico, look at me. You good?”  
And Nico looks up and meets grey eyes.  
“What?” he manages to mumble and then a relieved grin splits the night in two and light seeps into the dark, when _he_ smiles down at him.  
“Man, I’ve been looking for you for hours. Are you okay? That looked pretty nasty. How’s your head?”  
Soft fingers turn his chin around and that in combination with being bombarded with so many questions makes him dizzy. The pain is still there lingering in the background and it weighs down his tongue.  
“What?”  
A figure crouches down in front of the car door and Nico can’t pre-empt his mind from pitying the poor designer’s jeans getting all dirty.  
“I called you. I wanted to talk to you and you weren’t in your room. I looked for you.”  
_Yeah, we’ve had that already_, Nico thinks and suddenly his vision clears up like a camera lens being finally adjusted.  
“Kevin?!”  
A light chuckle, more nervousness than amusement.  
“Yes. Can you get up? What happened?”  
“What are you doing here?”  
“Just get up for now, Nico. Can you stand up?”  
And Nico lets Kevin heave him to his feet. 

The Dane steers him a little to the right (_of course in the right direction, how couldn’t he?_) and Nico leans against the battered bodywork.  
Kevin examines the wrecked car and taps on the screen of his smartphone in a staggering rhythm.  
Nico watches him without blinking, without missing a single one of Kevin’s motions.  
Questions tumble in and out of his mind and he can’t voice any of them. The ringing noise in his ear is still deafening and his head hurts like hell. All he can do is marvel at Kevin’s calm way of accessing the damage and taking care of… whatever. 

“What happened?”, he asks again without looking up.  
“You move pretty fast for such a small guy.” Nico’s lips say without him signing off the words.  
Kevin raises his eyebrows. His features harden and cold steel shimmers in his eyes.  
“Do I now? You seemed to have had a hard time overtaking me for all I can remember.”  
Nico snorts a laugh and it gets stuck in his windpipe, depraved to a strangled exhale. He could pick up a fight but leaves it be mid-thought, when he sees Kevin looking at him.  
“Yeah, it’s because I’m not fast enough anymore. That’s why no one wants me. That’s why you don’t want me.”  
Kevin sighs, discarding his phone.  
“That’s not true. You’re just too drunk to see it through right now.”

An eccentric laugh detangles itself from Nico’s sore throat and the pain twists his stomach in an icy chokehold. 

“Am I now?” he asks and does it unknowingly in the same cold way Kevin deflected his question earlier on. Deep grey ponds stare at him when Kevin meets his gaze and there’s more than just sympathy and pity. True hurt lies in the depth of Kevin’s eyes and it sparks Nico’s anger for whatever reason.  
Kevin takes a step in his direction, arms raised in a soothing gesture.  
“Fuck, Nico, I’m so sorry!”  
“Shut up or I’ll start throwing punches! Everyone sends me a text about how _god damn_ sorry they are and I’ve had enough! As if that changes anything, as if that somehow revives my career!”  
Nico jeers and feels a drop of blood running down his forehead. He catches it with trembling fingers and blinks at the bright red colour for a second before clenching his fist and pressing it against his chapped lips. To keep himself from throwing up, sobbing, breaking down – Nico doesn’t know anymore.

Kevin’s worried “You’re bleeding!” gets drowned out by Nico’s angry huff.  
“Why didn’t you warn me? Why didn’t you give me a heads up to what happened?”  
“I didn’t know, Nico. I read it online, too. I… I couldn’t believe it at first. I thought everything was cut and dried with Gene.”  
“Well, congratulations, it wasn’t! And now I’m the clown without a seat next season and look like a fucking idiot!”

It turns out to be a yell and Kevin takes a step back, desperation flickering across his features. 

“And I can’t even cry, you know?” Nico continues, unscathed by Kevin’s own pain and blinded by his own misery. Everything bubbles up and to the surface at once. He spreads his arms in a questioning gesture. “The last time I cried, was when my grandma died and I was devastated. But now? I’m done. Right? I’m done, it’s over.” The pain has found him again under the flickering light of a rusty neon-advertisement for a gas station and Nico finally feels himself tearing up. “And I spent the summer negotiating with Haas, but they were _so_ wary about the two of us and what happened back in Hungary. They wanted to play safe and I was too greedy. I wanted more, more money, more priority. Finally a chance of a podium.” A soft whimper leaves his lips and Nico presses a hand to his mouth to stop any more sounds, any more proofs of his weakness, from seeping through his massively built walls.  
He shakes his head and clenches his jaw until the muscle in his temple twitches painfully. “They chose you. And I didn’t look for an alternative until it was too late. I really believed someone would just knock at my door and offer me a deal. I don’t even know, why!” Nico laughs with tears pooling in the corners of his eyes and Kevin’s heart shatters into a million pieces. “I don’t bring money, I don’t bring a famous last name. I just have my talent and my experience and it’s too damn little.” He offers his empty hands to Kevin, who’s reduced to a powerless bystander in the middle of the street, smoke from the cooling engine stinging in his eyes. “And all I can do now is lie. I tell everyone I still got plans, I don’t have, and I still got options, I don’t have, and that I still got hopes, I don’t have.”  
Nico stops still. Drained of words if not of tears.  
“I’m sorry.” Kevin mutters and doesn’t even know why he’s apologising at all.  
He read the message about Romain keeping his seat and just wanted to check on Nico, for old time’s sake, pre-Hungary, pre-enmity. An empty hotel room and fifteen missed calls later he finds him completely wasted in a wrecked car. It does some inexplicable to Kevin's mind. So it’s not a surprise he catches his anger like a cold.  
“But you brought that onto you yourself. Because you denied their offer as well as everyone else’s. What are you even looking for anymore, Nico? Whatever it is, you clearly won’t find it in F1!”  
He jeers and stares Nico dead in the eye, baring teeth and claws. Once he starts talking, he can’t bring himself to stop anymore.

“Have you once thought about how I’m feeling right now? Have you ever considered asking yourself how I am coping with all this?”  
“You?!” Nico seems genuinely surprised. “Why would I, your seat is safe, isn’t it?! Or are you just trying to make this about yourself again as usual?!”

That’s when Kevin loses it. They stand in front of each other in the middle of the night, on an abandoned street with a battered and smoking car as their witness and yell at each other like the lone wolves and hurt creatures they are at heart. 

“You are unbelievable. Don’t you think, I suffer with you?! Don’t you think, I CARE ABOUT YOU?!”  
Kevin gulps and points a finger at Nico’s rapidly rising and falling chest. “You’re so eaten alive by all this bullshit, you didn’t even realise how badly I WANTED YOU TO TAKE THAT FUCKING SEAT, YOU SELF-INDULGENT ASSHOLE!” Kevin gasps and decides to utter the next words as well now that half the truth is unveiled anyway.  
“This is solely about you again, you and your fucking pride getting in the way _as always_!”  
“As always?!” Nico echoes and simply picks up Kevin’s last words to not have to think about the insult that is nothing but the bitter tasting truth.  
Kevin sniffles and realises he’s on the brink of tears again because of a guy who’s too succumbed to his own toxic conceit to realise how much it affects him, as well.  
“Yes, like always. Like back in Hungary, when you could have looked for me and confronted me. But you chose to run and hide, just like you’re doing now!”

He opens his clenched fist and pure desperation lingers in his husky voice.

“Haven’t you realised yet how badly I want you?”

Nico can only stare while his whole world comes crumbling down around him.  
“What?!” he manages to murmur and the paralysis is worse than the alcohol-induced one. It’s poison, drug and bile at once.  
The realisation hits him with full force this time, no safety net, no rope, no lifebelt.  
Kevin looks at him and everything lays bare in front of them on a nightly street in Singapore.  
It’s shattering, letting that hope go, too, after everything. The hope of wearing the same colours, not just similar ones. The hope of turning things around and finally becoming friends and not just colleagues with history.  
Nico clasps a hand in front of his mouth 

Hurting Kevin is worse than hurting himself.  
Never seeing Kevin again is worse than never standing on a podium.  
Losing Kevin is worse than losing the sport. 

And then the tears finally come. It’s a horrifying moment of nothingness, of falling into blackness before the tear seeps through his floodgates made of arrogance and denial and deflection. 

Kevin is with him and by his side faster than Nico’s drunken mind can comprehend. Two soft hands are on his cheeks again, not checking but holding him in place this time. A warm thumb caresses his tear-streaked cheek and hovers above parted lips for a second.  
“I’m sorry.” Kevin whispers again, before leaning in and pressing his lips on Nico’s. 

It’s less a kiss than it is a lapse in reality. Nico’s lips taste salty and like beer. Kevin feels Nico shiver against his chest and steadies him by pulling him even closer.  
It’s an anchor in the middle of a troubled ocean. A steadiness in the storm. And at the same time a whirlwind of its own.  
A trembling hand captivates Kevin’s neck and it makes him huff in surprise. Nico feels Kevin tensing up and his urge of pulling back and closes his arms around him even tighter.  
Until Kevin caves and opens his chapped lips.  
They lean against the car and each other and Nico feels himself being pulled together by the tender movement of warm lips against his own. His shaky intake of breath is a quivering sigh against Kevin’s cheek. He feels himself crying with every emotion boiling up now that the war with himself is over, now that he’s lost. He’s a war prisoner set free, his soul stretches its plucked wings. His innards clench with the sudden relief and it is Kevin, who keeps him standing, Kevin, who wipes away the tear and with it the pain and fear.  
The noise stops. The agony departs into the muggy night air.

They part and Nico’s forehead sinks to Kevin’s chest. 

“Nicolas, I’m so sorry.” Kevin gasps and now he knows why, even if he can’t put it into words. Maybe there aren’t any words. It’s still not his fault and yet he can’t do anything else than apologizing and feeling _genuinely sorry_ for Nico. And himself. He shakes his head and wipes his mouth, tastes Nico’s tears mingling with his own on his tongue.  
„I’m here for you.” _At least that’s what I was trying to say. Fuck, I’m sorry_. “I‘m doing this for you. Not just with you and by your side, but _for_ you, Nico. You’re the reason for so many things I’ve changed about myself and my life.” Kevin’s smile lightens up the area again, when he sniffles and shakes his head. His digits slide through Nico’s hair and sweaty blond strands slip through his fingers like liquid gold. “And you don’t even know that, do you? Jesus, Nico. The things I’d do for you…”  
Nico clings to his shirt like a drowning man and lets Kevin put him together with steady hands caressing his back and his whispered confessions. “I offered Günther my seat. It’s the dumbest thing a driver can do, but I did it. Günther was shocked and I think, I’ve got some amends to make now, but I told them to give you my seat, if they so desperately want to keep Romain.”  
“You…” _What?!_  
“Yeah, I know, call it stupid, call it… whatever.” _Love_. “The important thing is, that I won’t let you down now. I won’t _ever_ let you down.”  
And for the first time in months Nico feels hope blooming inside of him again.  
“Okay.” is all he can mutter into the fabric of Kevin’s white shirt.  
“I’ll take you home.” Kevin announces and for the first time in months Nico lets himself being guided by something else than his own toxic thoughts. 

________ 

Nico feels miserable. His head is one huge source of throbbing pain and he feels dangerously close to throwing up. He’s naked apart from black shorts that aren’t his own and he lays in a bed that definitely isn’t his own, either. Dust dances in the stripes of morning light seeping through the curtains and Nico closes his eyes again, unable to move.  
A door is being opened and closed and a second later a soft chuckle fills the room with sunlight and care.  
“Good morning, honey.”  
Nico groans and hides his face in the pillow. Kevin chuckles again and nudges his shoulder with warm fingers.  
“Come on, champ, rise and shine.”  
“Kevin? How can you be so awake, you must have had like three hours of sleep!” Nico growls into the soft cotton. The mattress dips when Kevin sits down, one leg tugged beneath his thigh.  
“Less actually, but we’ll talk about that later. Coffee?”  
It’s the magic word to make Nico lift his head and even open one eye. Kevin smiles at him shyly and offers him a steaming mug.  
Nico sniffles the air testily, but the malty taste of coffee churns his stomach.  
“Maybe later. Oh god, I vomited into the flower tub outside the hotel.”  
Kevin laughs at him and sets the mug aside. He does look tired, unshaved and his hair’s a mess. The wrinkled shirt as a hole at the collar and the black ink of his chest tattoo protrudes through the worn out fabric.  
“Yes, you did. But better there than in my hotel room. I hope you’re not too hungover, though, because I have to show you something.”  
“My head hurts like hell, but…”  
Nico touches his forehead and is surprised to find a little patch right underneath his hairline.  
“You patched me up?”  
“Yes, I didn’t want you to bleed on my pillow. No worries, I picked the cute one with dinosaurs.”  
Nico buries his face in the duvet and groans.  
“I owe you an apology, Kev. I was totally ahead of myself last night.”  
“Do you remember everything that happened?”  
Kevin’s tone is unreadable and Nico swallows drily, although he appreciates Kevin’s direct way.  
“Yes.” _Crash, fight and kiss_, he thinks and his heart skips a beat.  
Kevin nods and gets up, cradling his own coffee mug and stretching his neck.  
“Good.” he says curtly before turning toward the door. “Meet me in the living room.”

Half an hour and a proper shower later Nico feels like a different person. He found aspirin in the cabinet above the sink and Kevin has even put out a spare toothbrush. He hasn’t lied about the dinosaur patch, either and Nico peels it off with a light chuckle.  
When he enters the living room he stops still in the doorway and blinks just to find Kevin surrounded by both his tablet and his laptop and piles of notes and papers. They are everywhere, on the couch, the chair, the coffee table and one even sticks to the standard lamp in the far end corner of the room.

“What?” Nico gasps and questions himself whether his bender has reduced his vocabulary to one single word.  
Kevin looks up and beams at him.  
“I called a few people, you’re having an appointment with Williams tomorrow. Right before Robert will announce his retirement.” He points to a different bright yellow note, decorating the flat screen TV. “In half an hour we’ll get a return call from a Danish businessman partially owning a Formula E team. They are pretty much settled for the upcoming season, but we’ll see. I’ll have to translate a lot, I guess, but we’ll handle that.” His laptop announces a newly incoming mail, which he scrolls through and then discards with a grunt. “That’s the wrong contract, I idioter!” Kevin picks up a note with a phone number scribbled on it and nods at himself. “And that’s the number of my dad’s pal in the US. It’s a long shot and I know you don’t want to race Indy, but it’s an option. Just look at it as a last resort, alright? You know how it goes, people call people call people. We’ll figure some-“  
“I love you.”  
Nico says it without thinking about it once and still knows, it’s the irrevocable, all-consuming truth.  
He feels it’s too sudden, too damn little in comparison to what Kevin has done and is still doing for him, but he can’t help it. 

He takes a step in Kevin’s direction and is met by the Dane in the middle of the epitomic chaos of his hopes.  
“I love you. “ he says again just for good measure and just because he can and it’s true and not a single word he’s spoken over the past few months has ever felt this good.  
Kevin chuckles before diving into the touch of strong arms around his waist. They kiss and it’s like the first rays of the spring sun after freezing winter months, breaking through the surface of bitter cold water and taking in the first blissful breath of fresh air. Nico’s lips taste like toothpaste and hope this time and Kevin grins against his lips, savouring the sensation, the feeling, Nico.  
Kevin feels strength returning to firm muscles and sees it in Nico’s cobalt blue eyes, when they part.  
“I love you, too.”

**Author's Note:**

> "I idioter" means "You (bunch of) idiots!" in Danish (At least, I hope so xD)
> 
> I do have tumblr, “charonaraccoon”.  
Let me know what you think, folks!


End file.
